Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders, or RWB (French: Reporters sans frontières, or RSF) is "an international non-governmental organization devoted to freedom of the press". Another related project is the Doha Centre for Media Freedom.


 * RWB/RSF is a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a virtual network of non-governmental organisations that monitors free expression violations worldwide and campaigns to defend journalists, writers and others who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

RWF's website notes that: "The Saatchi & Saatchi agency designs and conducts all our media campaigns."

In November 2006 "The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) have expressed concern about the proposed amendments, which are part of a penal code review."

Listed Staff
Accessed August 2007:


 * Tala Dowlatshahi - New York
 * Lucie Morilllon - Washington
 * Jean-Baptiste Damestoy - London

Not listed

 * Todd Lester "worked with Reporters Without Borders to establish its New York communications desk."
 * Saleem Samad
 * George Tarkhan-Mouravi - Past Correspondence
 * Vincent Brossel of the Asia-Pacific desk 2006/07
 * Faisal Elbagir - Correspondent of Sudan
 * Julien Pain, Reporters sans frontières, France
 * Paul Kamara
 * Alexandre Levy
 * Phillippe Guerrier
 * Jean Chichizola

Funding Sources
Robert Menard, the Secretary General of RSF, was forced to confess that RSF's budget was primarily provided by "US organizations strictly linked with US foreign policy" (Thibodeau, La Presse).
 * NED (US$39,900 paid 14 Jan 2005)
 * Center for a Free Cuba (USAID and NED funded) $50,000 per year NED grant. Contract was signed by Otto Reich
 * European Union (1.2m Euro) -- currently contested in EU parliament
 * Rights & Democracy in 2004 supported Reporters Without Borders-Canada

"Grants from private foundations (Open Society Foundation, Center for a Free Cuba, Fondation de France, National Endowment for Democracy) were slightly up, due to the Africa project funded by the NED and payment by Center for a Free Cuba for a reprint of the banned magazine De Cuba." 

Principal focus of RSF activities

 * Cuba
 * Venezuela
 * Haiti

Reporters Without Borders-Canada Board of Directors
Accessed August 2007:


 * Michel Roy : Honorary Member of the Board of Directors
 * Francois Bugingo : President and Spokesperson
 * Paule Beaugrand-Champagne : Vice-President
 * Dennis Trudeau
 * Claude Levesque : Treasurer
 * Tanya Churchmuch
 * Laura-Julie Perreault
 * Michel Vastel
 * Emily Jacquard : Secretary General of the Canadian Section of Reporters Without Borders and coordinator of Reporters Without Borders Canada’s national office.

Awards
RSF has received a number of awards including:


 * in January 2007 RSF received the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award, a prize set by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.


 * In 2005, "the organisation won the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought."


 * RSF "received two prizes in 2006 - an Emmy Award in the United States and the Antonio Asensio Prize for freedom of expression presented by the King of Spain. Both were encouragement for all those fighting for the right to be informed and to inform the public."

Press Freedom Award
"The Reporters Sans Frontières-Fondation de France Prize, worth 50,000 francs, has been awarded annually since 1992 to journalists who, through their work or attitudes, have demonstrated their devotion to press freedom.

"In previous years the prize has gone to:


 * 1992, journalist Zlatko Dizdarevic, of the Sarajevo daily Oslobodenje
 * 1993, Chinese journalist Wang Juntao, of Economic Weekly
 * 1994, Rwandan journalist Andre Sibomana, editor of the magazine Kinyamateka
 * 1995, Christina Anyanwu, editor of The Sunday Magazine, Nigeria
 * 1996, Turkish journalist Isik Yurtcu, former editor of the pro-Kurdish daily Ozgür Gündem
 * 1997, journalist Raul Rivero, founder of the Cuba Press news agency.

"The Prize has been awarded in past years to : Zlatko Dizdarevic (Bosnia-Herzegovina - 1992), Wang Juntao (China - 1993), André Sibomana (Rwanda - 1994), Christina Anyanwu (Nigeria - 1995), Isik Yurtçu (Turkey - 1996), Raúl Rivero (Cuba - 1997), Nizar Nayuf (Syria - 1998), San San Nweh (Burma - 1999), Carmen Gurruchaga (Spain - 2000), Reza Alijani (Iran - 2001), Grigory Pasko (Russia - 2002), Ali Lmrabet (Morocco - 2003), Michèle Montas (Haïti - 2003) and to the independent newspaper The Daily News (Zimbabwe - 2003).

"Several winners were released from prison just a few months or even weeks after being awarded the Prize, including Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet (who won it on 10 December 2003 and was freed on 7 January 2004), Russian journalist Grigory Pasko (won in December 2002, freed in January 2003) and Burmese journalist San San Nweh (won in December 1999, released in 2001)."

"This year [1998], the six other nominees for the award were:
 * Win Tin, editor of the daily Hanthawadi (Burma)
 * Ana Zarkova, a journalist with the daily Trud (Bulgaria)
 * Pius Njawe, editor of the triweekly Le Messager (Cameroon)
 * Gao Yu, a journalist with two Hong Kong publications (China)
 * Ging Ginanjar, founder of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Indonesia)
 * Jesus Blancornelas, founder of the weekly Zeta (Mexico)"

"The five journalists nominated for the 11th [2002] prize were: Gao Qinrong, Bernardo Arevalo Padron, Michele Montas, Grigory Pasko, and Myroslava Gongadze.

"Winners of the Prize 2004

"The Prize is awarded to:

- Journalists who have shown devotion to freedom of information through their work, through taking a stand or by their attitude. " The winner in this category is Algerian journalist Hafnaoui Ghoul, provincial correspondent of the daily paper El Youm and head of the regional office of the Algerian Human Rights League (LADDH). He was imprisoned for six months for alleged libel after exposing corruption and abuses by local officials. He was conditionally released on 25 November this year.

- A media outlet that exemplifies the battle for the right to inform the public and to be informed.

"The winner here is the Mexican weekly Zeta for its investigative reporting and courageous editorial positions. Its motto is " Publish what other papers don’t ". This policy has cost three of its reporters their lives. Despite these big setbacks, the staff refuses to be intimidated and the paper’s management is maintaining its stand. The paper’s battle continues.

- A defender of press freedom.

"The winner is former Beijing University philosophy teacher Liu Xiaobo, who heads the Independent Writers' Association, the only one of its kind in China. Liu is determined that the Chinese media should become a counterweight to the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party. He is tirelessly fighting for the universal ideal of press freedom, calling for the release of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents and posting articles on the Internet and in Hong Kong and diaspora newspapers. For all this he risks being re-arrested at any moment."


 * Tolo TV, winner of a 2005 Reporters Without Borders - Fondation de France press freedom award.


 * Zhao Yan, "contributor to the New York Times, winner of a 2005 Reporters Without Borders - Fondation de France press freedom award".

"OMV supports the organisation Reporters Without Borders by financing the Press Freedom Award for Journalists in the EU Accession States The winners for 2004 were journalists from Eastern European countries that are now neighbours of the EU: Anca Paduraru from Romania, Alina Anghel from Moldavia, Andriy Sevchenko from Ukraine."


 * Omar Faruk Osman

"The 2006 laureates are:

"Defender of press freedom" category
 * U Win Tin (Burma) in the "Journalist" category
 * Novaya Gazeta (Russia) in the "Media" category
 * Journaliste En Danger (Democratic Republic of Congo) in the
 * Guillermo Farinas Hernandez (Cuba) in the "Cyberdissident" category"

2005 Runners Up
Runners-up : "Journalist" category : - Daniel Coronell (Colombia) Outspoken head of the news programme "Noticias Uno" on the TV station Canal Uno, contributor to the magazine Semana and a critic of President Álvaro Uribe. He was forced to leave the country for the United States after months of pressure, threats and harassment because he investigated killings in the "peace community" of San Jose de Apartado (in the northwestern province of Antioquia).

- Hector Fernando Maseda Gutierrez (Cuba) A nuclear engineer who was dismissed by the regime in the late 1980s for "ideological errors" and in the 1990s joined the small independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro. He is also vice-president of the Liberal Democratic Party. He was arrested in the March 2003 crackdown on dissidents, accused of "undermining the country's independence and territorial integrity" and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

- Akbar Ganji (Iran) A journalist with the reformist dailies Sobh-e-Emrouz, Neshat and Asr-e-Azadegan, editor of the weekly Rah-e-No and a symbolic Iranian media figure. He was given a six-year prison sentence for "undermining state security," "insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic and the holy principles of the regime" and for "making propaganda against the Islamic Republic."

- Tulkin Karaev (Uzbekistan) Correspondent for Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and the Iranian radio station Mashhad in the southern town of Karshi and a contact for the rights group The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). He was the target of a witch-hunt by the authorities after the violence in Andijan on 13 May 2005. He was jailed for 10 days and then left the country.

"Media outlet": - Democratic Voice of Burma (Burma) Norwegian-based radio and TV station founded in 1992 by a group of pro-democracy students who survived the 1988 killings and one of the few sources of news not subject to the military regime's harsh censorship. Its correspondents in Thailand and informants inside Burma are regularly harassed by the Burmese secret police and the Thai police.

- Serambi Indonesia (Indonesia) Only six days after the December 2004 tsunami that devastated the province of Aceh, the remaining staff of Serambi Indonesia handed out nearly 10,000 copies of the paper free to the disaster victims. The paper has shown its independence and energy in the face of pressure from the security forces and separatist rebels.

"Defender of press freedom": - The Save Independent Radio Movement (Nepal) The army burst into radio stations on 1 February 2005 and banned independent stations from broadcasting news, putting more than 1,000 journalists out of work in the space of a few weeks. The journalists formed the Movement, which persuaded dozens of stations to resume broadcasting news.

- Gemma Damalerio (Philippines) The wife of journalist Edgar Damalerio has suffered much since he was murdered in May 2002. She went into hiding for two years to escape the accomplices of the killer (a policemen protected by his superiors) and is now guarded day and night by armed justice ministry agents. However, she has just won a victory with the jailing of her husband's murderer for life. But those behind the killing are still walking free.

"Cyber-dissident": - Mojtaba Saminejad (Iran) The 25-year-old blogger was sentenced to two years in prison by the Teheran revolutionary court for criticising in his blog the arrest of three other bloggers and "insulting" the country's Supreme Guide. He is being held in Gohar Dashat prison, in suburban Teheran, which is notorious for torture and ill-treatment.

- Pham Hong Son (Vietnam) A doctor and representative of a foreign pharmaceutical firm in prison since 27 March 2002 for translating and posting online an article called "What is Democracy ?" He was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of house arrest. He has a groin hernia and lung problems. For several months he has been coughing up blood and fears he may have TB."

2002 International Jury
"Hamed Hamidzada (Afghanistan), Andrew Graham-Yooll (Argentina), Rubina Mohring (Austria), Mainul Islam Khan (Bangladesh), Olivier Basille (Belgium), Colette Braeckman (Belgium), Zlatko Dizdarevic (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Sebastiao Salgado (Brazil), Maung Maung Myint (Burma), Ricardo Gonzalez (Cuba), M'Baya Tshimanga (Democratic Republic of Congo), Domenico Amha-Tsion]] (Eritrea), Francis Charhon]] (France), Noel Copin]] (France), Laurent Joffrin (France), Elise Lucet (France), Sabine Christiansen (Germany), Michael Rediske (Germany), Guy Delva (Haiti), Alessandro Oppes (Italy), Ricardo Uceda (Peru), Alexey Simonov (Russia), Fernando Castello (Spain), Vicente Verdu (Spain), Alice Petren (Sweden), Laurence Deonna (Switzerland), Sihem Bensedrine (Tunisia), Alla Lazareva (Ukraine), Alan Rusbridger (United Kingdom) and Ben Ami Fihman (Venezuela)."

Otto Reich connection

 * "The man who links RSF to these activities is Otto Reich, who worked on the coups first as assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, and, after Nov. 2002, as a special envoy to Latin America on the National Security Council. Besides being a trustee of the government-funded Center for a Free Cuba, which gives RSF $50,000 a year, Reich has worked since the early 1980's with the IRI.'s senior vice president, Georges Fauriol, another member of the Center for a Free Cuba. But it is Reich's experience in propaganda that is especially relevant."

Principals

 * Robert Ménard -- Sec. General
 * Lucie Morillon -- RSF rep in Washington DC
 * Frank Calzón -- formerly a leader of Abdalas and the Cuban American National Foundation.

Affiliates
In October 2001 the Burma Media Association (BMA) "joined the international network of organizations in Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders)."

Contact details
Reporters sans frontières International Secretariat 5, rue Geoffroy-Marie 75009 Paris - France Tel: 33 1 44 83 84 84 Fax: 33 1 45 23 11 51 E-mail: rsf AT rsf.org RSF Website: http://www.rsf.org/

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Arab Press Freedom Watch
 * Blogging
 * Gulf Press Freedom Center
 * Journalism
 * non-governmental organization
 * Omar Faruk Osman In 2006, he was chosen to be a member of the international jury of the RSF
 * Christine Ockrent